Calling him 'closer'

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Thursday

Feb 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMFeb 23, 2012 at 12:30 PM

JUPITER, Fla. — Contrary to the stubborn stance he took throughout October, former Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa did not retire without first acknowledging the role, by name, Jason Motte played in the championship run.

Once the right-hander had wiggled free of the celebration that followed the final out of World Series Game 7, he found La Russa near the dugout.

"You're my closer," the manager announced.

"You're only saying that because we don't have any more games," Motte replied.

"You're smarter than you look," La Russa said as he winked.

While La Russa refused to give Motte the title, he became eager to give the righty the responsibility. Motte had a save in five of the Cardinals' first seven victories in the postseason and pitched a perfect ninth in Game 7 to clinch the championship. Motte left last season as he arrives at this spring training — no longer experimenting to find the reliever he might be, but a pitcher in full. New Manager Mike Matheny has a word to describe what Motte has become.

He calls him closer.

"There aren't any semantics," Matheny said yesterday. "It's just being honest. How do I see this bullpen? I see that there is a guy who did a great job in the ninth inning last year, and there's no reason not to go into this season thinking the same thing. ... I think of it" as "just letting somebody know that you have confidence in them. Jason deserved that."

Motte, 29, threw a bullpen session yesterday and flashed that same economical delivery and explosive velocity that won the ninth late last season. This spring he has been able to maintain a grip on a hard breaking ball that pitching coach Derek Lilliquist said was the breakthrough last summer. Motte also mixed in some change-ups yesterday, but unlike previous springs when a new pitch was a priority, this year it's a luxury.

Last spring, Motte spent the first month of training struggling to get more movement on his pitches and master an offspeed pitch. After another wobbly appearance in an exhibition game, he and then-pitching coach Dave Duncan called off the experiments.

Duncan told Motte to "just go out and throw."

"It wasn't like I was out there messing around: 'Hey, hey, let's try a gyroball,' " Motte said. "I feel like even in spring training I was tinkering with stuff. I was throwing change-ups. I was trying to throw different stuff up there. It wasn't going where I wanted it to go, because I wasn't used to throwing it."

Motte described how in 2009 and 2010 he would tinker around with secondary pitches during games, once test-driving a change-up against Ronny Cedeno only to see the light-hitting infielder send it over the wall. Since converting from catcher during the 2006 season, Motte's search for a secondary pitch was as much of his profile as his inferno fastball.

He could cook at 98 mph.

But what else did he serve?

"The guy has a golden arm," Lilliquist said. "You're given a 427 Hemi" engine, "and now you're building everything around it to make it a race car. His obvious tool was arm strength. Now it's just adding all of the components that to this point in spring seem to be there. ... He has the weapons."

In many ways, Motte has become a composite of the pitchers and coaches he's had or ones he's watched. Former teammate Russ Springer introduced him to a cut fastball. Lilliquist, who oversaw Motte's transformation from catcher to pitcher, taught him a sinker, which Motte grips over one seam. Ryan Franklin taught him a split-finger fastball he tried but abandoned. Jason Isringhausen offered a curveball. The fist-pop Motte gives his glove before delivering a pitch is like Josh Beckett's.

The epiphany, however, was all his.

Last season, Motte stopped trying to force movement on his pitches. Instead of willing his breaking ball to veer, he fired it and trusted it would veer. His cutter gained a deeper bite, and Motte took off, eventually handling the ninth inning for the stretch run.

"And once you get this role," Motte concluded, "you've got to do everything you can now to keep it."

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